


Autumn's Violins

by aderyn



Series: Natural Facts [7]
Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: 221B Ficlet, Gen, Post Reichenbach, lucid dreams & violins
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-03-24
Updated: 2012-03-24
Packaged: 2017-11-02 11:00:04
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 238
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/368251
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/aderyn/pseuds/aderyn
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>“You got all that from D minor?”</p>
<p>“I think it’s enough, don’t you?”</p>
<p>“You’ve learned my methods, John,” says Sherlock, so fondly.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Autumn's Violins

**Author's Note:**

> Title from Verlaine’s “Chanson d'automne”;the whole poem in translation is in the end notes. 
> 
> This one made me sad.

 

_“I’ve got just one thing I can’t give you, just one more thing of mine.” –Mazzy Star, “Flowers in December”_

 

Sherlock is playing, something that sounds like a second movement in D minor.

John says,

“You closed the case, but you missed a minor detail and it bothered you, possibly because Anderson noticed; you still haven’t eaten anything except for tea ,two sugars, no less than six hours ago; oh and your white count is elevated, T cells , something viral; you’ll be ill within 12 hours if you don’t sleep.”

Sherlock says, “You got all that from D minor?”

“I think it’s enough, don’t you?”

“You’ve learned my methods, John,” says Sherlock, so fondly. 

“To bed before you fall down,” says John.

He knows it’s a dream because Sherlock vanishes, violin and all.

***

_I need to wake up_ , he thinks.

Now Sherlock is sitting on the end of his bed, cradling the violin.

“I need your assistance, John.”

“A case?”

“The violin case,” says Sherlock, “I can’t find it.”

“Lie down,” says John, “We’ll find it in the morning.”

He needs to wake up.

***

Autumn in London (it wasn’t autumn, but in the dream it is), and they’re on the roof of Barts.

Sherlock takes John’s sleeve.

“I've got the violin,” Sherlock says. 

“I've got the gun,” says John.

“I suppose we’re ready for anything, then.”

It’s beautiful up there.

They walk to the edge. No wind blows.

**Author's Note:**

> Chanson d'Automne  
> Paul Verlaine, Arthur Symons translation
> 
> When a sighing begins  
> In the violins  
> Of the autumn-song,  
> My heart is drowned  
> In the slow sound  
> Languorous and long
> 
> Pale as with pain,  
> Breath fails me when  
> The hours tolls deep.  
> My thoughts recover  
> The days that are over  
> And I weep.
> 
> And I go  
> Where the winds know,  
> Broken and brief,  
> To and fro,  
> As the winds blow  
> A dead leaf.


End file.
